Buried in a NYT piece today on yet another tragic incident in Afghanistan--locals killed, U.S. blamed-- came word that the Taliban leader accused of kidnapping two Times reporters last year (they're at left) had been slain himself. Here is excerpt:[T]he Taliban have also made inroads in the northern province of Kunduz, where American Special Forces raided a house on the outskirts of the provincial capital, also named Kunduz, early Wednesday morning, killing a local Taliban commander and several bodyguards.
The Taliban commander was the same one responsible for the kidnapping of The New York Times reporters Stephen Farrell and Sultan Munadi, an Afghan, in September, according to the governor of Kunduz.
A NATO spokesman confirmed that there had been an operation in the village, but said only that two insurgents were killed and that they had been armed with machine guns.
Mr. Farrell and Mr. Munadi were kidnapped by local Taliban on Sept. 5 when they were looking into the NATO bombing of two oil tankers that had been hijacked by the Taliban, which killed scores of people who had gathered to siphon off the fuel. The journalists were grabbed in a village in the Char Dara district of Kunduz Province.
The two men were held for four days and then British commandos staged a nighttime rescue. In the melee Mr. Munadi, a husband and father of two, was killed.
A reporter for an Afghan news agency who went to the village shortly after the kidnapping and again on Wednesday confirmed that the Taliban commander killed in the raid was the same man responsible for organizing the abduction.
It never dawns on anyone that people who will throw acid in a little girsl face, because she went to school, are not above killing a few civilians and blaming ir on a NATO raid. Even in a worst case, how much sympathy are we supposed to have for people who offer hospitality to monsters.
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